Donald Trump's Legacy is Already Tarnished

Donald Trump's longstanding actions and rhetoric with respect to people of color have always raised questions about his commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion.
In 1973, the Justice Department sued real estate tycoon Donald Trump and his father for their alleged refusal to rent apartments in predominantly white buildings to Black tenants. Testimony showed that applications filed by Black apartment seekers were marked with a “C” for “colored.” The lawsuit ended in a settlement in which the Trumps acknowledged they “failed and neglected” to comply with the Fair Housing Act, though they were never required to explicitly acknowledge discrimination had occurred.
In 1989, Donald Trump infamously took out full page newspaper ads calling for New York state to reinstate the death penalty as five Black and Latino teenagers were set to stand trial for beating and raping a white woman in Central Park. Black clergy leaders responded with their own full-page ad denouncing Trump’s as a ''thinly veiled racist polemic’’ meant to divide the city. The Rev. Al Sharpton also organized a demonstration outside Trump Tower. The five men were eventually exonerated in 2002 after another man admitted to the crime and it was determined their confessions were coerced.
In the 1990s, Atlantic City casino mogul Donald Trump frequently cast doubt about the legitimacy of Indian tribes seeking to build casinos in the New York area, citing their dark skin as evidence they were faking their ancestry. “They don’t look like Indians to me, and they don’t look like Indians to Indians, and a lot of people are laughing at it,” Donald Trump said of the Mashantucket Pequots who operate Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut during testimony before Congress in 1993. Tribe leaders at the time called out the remarks as racist. The National Indian Gaming Association filed a Federal Communications Commission complaint after Donald Trump made similar remarks on Don Imus’ talk radio show. The group described his on-air comments as “obscene, indecent and profane racial slurs against Native Americans and African Americans.” The FCC declined to take action, though it called the remarks “deplorable” and “offensive.” Donald Trump also famously used the “birther” conspiracy to propel himself into national politics in the late 2000s. During the Obama administration, he baselessly claimed the nation’s first Black president wasn’t qualified to hold the office because he was born in Kenya, not the U.S., as is required under the Constitution.
Donald Trump's legacy -- whatever it may or may not eventually be -- will forever be linked to self-inflicted failures in race relations.